Karen Jennings

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Infection Control 06 - 6th July 2006
MAKING CLEANER HOSPITALS A REALITY

• Karen Jennings
• National Secretary, Health

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1. Prioritise Cleaning Services

• A break from the culture that has largely
  prevailed since competitive tendering of the mid
  1980s which branded cleaning and non clinical
  services as hotel services

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2. More Staff, More Hours

• Hospital cleaning remains in essence a hard,
  labour-intensive job, in which technology has
  made little impact in the last 20 years.
  Improvement in cleaning standards therefore
  requires a major increase in the number of hours
  worked and an increase in the numbers of cleaning
  staff.

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3. More and Better Resources

• Cleaning staff need the right physical resources
  to work with adequate supplies of properly
  maintained equipment and high quality cleaning
  materials and the ability to comply with good
  practices in infection control

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4. Staff Involvement and Effective Teams

• Cleaner hospitals cannot be secured simply
  through the existing cleaning staff working
  harder any improvement has to be a team effort.

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5. Respect and training for all

• To deliver high quality cleaning services, and
  win the respect of experienced cleaning staff, it
  is necessary for the management and supervision
  within these services to be appropriately
  trained, in cleaning techniques, in health and
  safety and infection control and in management
  skills.

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6. Market Testing Failures, Poor Pay and Term and
Conditions

• Experience in the NHS shows 20 years has led to
  drastic cost cutting and declining and
  unacceptable levels of cleaning standards. As
  well as the need to increase staffing
  establishments, serious attention is needed to
  address the high turnover and intolerable vacancy
  levels. Paying decent levels of pay and
  conditions of service is one way to show staff
  they are valued.

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